Coffee Break
by poestheblackcat
Summary: There's a shooting in a coffee shop, and Eliot's brother's team of paramedics is called to the scene. Hurt!Eliot.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: There's a shooting in a coffee shop, and Eliot's brother's team of paramedics is called to the scene. Hurt!Eliot. Sequel to "Saved a Wretch Like Me" (Chapters 10 & 11) from my collection "Twenty-Three Chromosomes." I would recommend reading that first.

Written upon request for **drjones** (anon, so hope you see this!) as a present for her anniversary. Congrats! (Seriously, see how _easy_ it is to manipulate me into writing for you? I started this on Saturday. I wasn't even fully recovered from my writing binge!) I haven't finished writing this story (just wanted to get this first part up in time for the anniversary, and since I've already broken my New Year's resolution with the 23 Chromosomes things, I thought why not. But please keep in mind that there will not be daily updates.)

By the way, **drjones**, look at how dedicated I am. I had the site make up a category all for little old you. Sparkly new _Rescue 77_ category!

Disclaimer: Not mine, but also, I would like to add that I know nothing about medical stuff. So if anything is off, just pretend that you didn't see that and move on...Okay? Everyone happy? Okay.

* * *

**Coffee Break**

**Chapter 1**

They're only three minutes away from the emergency site when they get the call.

Shooting in a coffee shop. Who the hell shoots someone in a coffee shop?

"Hey, I'd like a mocha cappuccino with a shot of es- ahh!"

A coffee shop is a sacred place. It is an integral part of the morning rituals of countless people across the globe. The coffee shop is indispensable. To shoot someone in one? Really, the nerve of some people. Right?

But in all seriousness, bullet wounds are urgent matters, and they speed through the streets of L.A. to the Little Ole Coffee Shoppe, where their victim is.

There's a hysterical crowd by the time they get there, and they have to shout and shove their way in.

"Paramedics! Let us through, please."

A smallish man, who identifies himself as the shop manager, rushes up to them and starts explaining that a man had come in and shouted a lot and tried to shoot his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or something, and that another guy had taken the first guy down, but not before getting shot, and now he's bleeding all over the place, and ohmygod, this has never happened here before, never, ever, ever.

"Let us get to him. We need to help him."

The crowd parts to let the Rescue 77 team through.

There's a man crouched over the prone figure lying on the floor. He's got his hands on the wounds on the injured man's stomach, wadded-up napkins and rags all wet and dark red from the blood. Another look shows them that an unconscious man who is probably the shooter is sitting in a corner taped up tighter than a Christmas present. The gun is in two pieces.

"Eliot, man, don't do this!" the black man with the crimson hands says hysterically. "Come on, man, this is- You can't do this! It's against the rules! You ain't s'posed to stay down like this! You cain't die! This is _not_ the plan!"

Bell, who is up in front, halts abruptly when he sees the victim. Ryan and Wick bump into him.

"Bell? What is it?" Ryan asks. The tall blonde looks over her partner's shoulder and gasps. "Wick."

Wick, being shorter than the two in front, can't see what the hell is going on, until Bell and Ryan move forward to help the injured man. Then he sees.

"Dammit, Eliot!"

He rushes to his brother's side and removes the black guy's shaking hands, dripping with blood, and replaces them with his own rubber-gloved hands and the gauze that Ryan hands him.

"Ohmygawd, ohmygawd," the black guy starts to babble as soon as he catches sight of Wick's face. "The hell? What the hell? I'mma faint."

Wick puts more pressure on the two wounds in his brother's gut prompting a pained grunt. He lets go for a moment to catch Eliot's right wrist in a tight grip when it slashes up to fend off the imaginary attackers.

"Eliot, dammit. It's me. It's Wick. Let me help."

He lets the wrist fall when the strength goes out of the arm, and puts his hand back on the bleeding injury.

"Wi- ?" Pale blue eyes flutter open and focus blearily on his face.

"Yeah, man, it's me." Eliot's eyes start to close again, so Wick pushes down. "Hey! Don't you dare die on me, Eliot. What am I supposed to tell Gracie if you die on my watch? Huh? She'll never forgive me for killing her favorite uncle."

"Gracie?" Blood bubbles up between pale lips.

"Yeah, Gracie. You're coming to her birthday party, aren't you?" Wick asks as they load Eliot onto the stretcher. "Got her gift already? I bet it's something outrageously expensive and loud, isn't it?"

Eliot's grin is cocky even through blood-stained teeth. "Wouldn't get her anything that wasn't," he gasps.

"Of course not," Wick says lightly in response, although his expression and urgent movements are anything but. "Hey," he says to the black guy, who has followed them out with a worried expression, "You his friend? Are you riding with us?"

The guy stares a moment longer, and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm comin'. Ain't no one leavin' me behind, know what I'm sayin'? Ain't no one leavin' my ass here while my best friend is bleedin' to death, no way in hell," he rambles as he climbs up into the ambulance. "No way."

"Hardison," Eliot wheezes, "Shut up."

Wick claps an oxygen mask on him and gets a seething glare in response. "So you're Hardison, huh?" he says conversationally to his brother's friend, "Heard a lot about you over the years. Glad to finally meet you."

Hardison's hand twitches and he grins nervously. "You're Eliot's brother."

"That I am. His twin brother, actually. But you already knew that."

"Eliot Spencer doesn't have a twin brother," Hardison says, and the long, slim fingers rat-a-tat on his thigh in an anxious motion.

Wick doesn't blink at the alias. He knows that his brother's work takes him to dangerous places, and that there's a very real need for anonymity. "Eliot Lobo does," he replies.

"Lobo," Hardison says thoughtfully, and pulls out his phone. He pauses for a second as he thinks. "'Lobo' means 'wolf' in Spanish," he says.

"Yes, it does," Wick agrees, all the while monitoring Eliot's breathing and blood pressure.

"That explains his wolf fetish," the kid says in an 'I just figured out something really cool!' voice.

Wick barks out a sharp laugh. "That's just posturing. He pretends to live up to the romanticized 'lone wolf' stereotype, but he actually likes being around people."

Eliot says something that sounds vaguely like a threat, but his words are muffled by the mask.

Wick looks down at his furious brother. "What was that, bro? I couldn't hear you. The oxygen mask was in the way."

Eliot's next words are very obvious, as they are accompanied by an angry gesture.

"Right back atcha, man. By the way, make sure you don't teach Gracie that one."

Eliot makes yet another rude gesture from his never-ending cache of swear words.

"And you show her that one, she will literally be grounded until she's thirty. No visitors, including you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: Before you say anything, don't worry. I'm not gonna kill him, okay? I know I like killing characters off because I'm sadistic like that, but I'm not planning for anyone to die in this one...so far. Obviously, I don't know where I'm going with this, haha. I'm about *whistles* two postings ahead right now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Hardison gets everyone on the coms as soon as he clears his mind enough to process the fact that one, Eliot got shot by some dumbass with a gun who wasn't even aiming at him, two, dude, _Eliot_ got _shot,_ and three, Eliot has a twin brother who just happens to be a paramedic whose team just _happened_ to be nearby when _Eliot_ _got shot_. And four, he needs to wash his hands because they have Eliot's blood all over them, and that's just plain gross and traumatizing (and gross) and scary (and gross).

Wick Lobo had been called away again by the radio on his belt, but before going, he had made sure that the hospital would tell Hardison and the others Eliot's status and let them visit him post-op.

All around, a normal, stand-up guy, Hardison thinks. In the ambulance, the man had kept up a steady stream of lively, upbeat chatter, which Hardison now realizes was meant to put both his patient and his brother's friend at ease. Once Eliot had been rolled away, the easygoing smile had faded abruptly away into worry, and he had marched right up to the front desk to talk to the nurse.

Even in his haze of bewilderment, Hardison had caught the words "visiting me an' Gracie," "no ID on him," "forgot his wallet at my place," "not allergic to anything," and "I can fill out his medical record."

Now, Eliot had had his wallet on him (Parker had put it back before he and Hardison went out for a coffee run) at the time of the shooting, so Hardison can only assume that Wick had known that the ID in the wallet would not be for "Eliot Lobo," which would raise questions at a facility where he himself is well-known, and had thus taken and hidden it himself.

Smart, stand-up guy. Just like his brother.

The others arrive at the hospital within half an hour of his telling them about the shooting, with "How is he?" the first question on their lips.

"No word yet," he answers, "but Wick made sure we'll be the first to know."

"So this Wick guy is Eliot's brother?" Parker says, sitting down next to him. "That's weird."

"Twin brother," Hardison corrects.

"Even weirder."

"What's he like, this brother of Eliot's?" Sophie wonders, truly wanting to know, but also to keep the minds of her team off of this most recent disaster.

"Like...Normal Eliot," Hardison says, "Not normal, as in normal for our Eliot, but normal like Suburban Ken doll Eliot."

"Weirdest."

"Tell me about it," agrees Hardison with an emphatic nod. "He's got a nine-almost-ten-year-old daughter named Grace, adopted, though it looks like nurture won over nature in this round because she looks exactly like him, look at that," he says, and shows Parker a picture of the Lobo father and daughter on his phone.

She hums her agreement. "Uber-weird."

Nate leans over to take a look. "Wife?" he asks, seeing that Wick is _not_ wearing a ring.

"Jessica Lobo, dead, car accident six years ago. Speaking of accidents, Wick had one earlier this year," Hardison says, and grimaces. "Ugh, says here he was 'impaled' on a metal pole when he fell off of a roof during a rescue. Coma, woke up, and now he's back at work. Damn. Must be some good genes in this family."

"Earlier this year?" Nate asks, thinking. "Around the time we split up?"

"Yeah, right around that time," he nods. "Eliot went off-grid for a while during our break. Huh. Guess that means he was here with his brother." He taps a bit more. "Yep. Got pings on an 'Eliot Lobo' credit card in L.A. He's Wick's medical proxy and vice versa."

"So Eliot trusts his brother explicitly," Sophie muses, "Enough for him to allow Wick to make medical decisions for him."

"Wick's files say that he's one hell of a good medic," Hardison says, delving in deeper into the man's past in order to avoid thinking about the thing that he wants to avoid thinking about - the fact that Eliot is not Superman and thus not impervious to bullets. And there, he just thought about the thing he didn't want to think about.

"Of course he is. He's Eliot's brother," Nate says. "Eliot must have picked up at least some of his medical knowledge from Wick. He's way too good at patching himself up."

The conversation stutters to a stop at that, as they all remember why exactly they're here. Hardison distracts himself by taking Wick Lobo's private electronic history to pieces. He finds out what he had gotten his daughter for her birthday. He stumbles on a medical file that tells him exactly why he and his wife had been forced to adopt. He also discovers something weird about the adoption itself and picks at that for a while like a scab. It falls apart like a house of cards after Parker steals a card from the bottom row.

"What the- " Hardison exclaims, drawing the attention of the rest of his team.

"What?"

"Um, never mind. Someone just beat me in a game," he hedges, making Sophie narrow her eyes at him suspiciously.

"How did that happen?" Parker asks incredulously.

"I was distracted by the big hairy elephant in the room," Hardison says to defend himself.

"Big hairy elephants are called mammoths," says Parker with a solemn expression, "And they're brown and very cuddly."

"Okay. Right you are."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Review Replies to **matt** (anon reviewer):

Hey, I hope you catch this. Replying to your last three reviews to me: I love that you're reading my work even though you haven't seen the shows. Thanks for your support!

Review Replies to **Strawberry M&M** (another anon):

Hey, I've got a lot of your reviews that I'd like to reply to, but I never know where you're going to pop up, so I can't really tell if you'll even see them. Do you want me to send them to your sister's account? I think I did that once, but didn't get anything back that said whether you got them or not. Anyway, I hope you see this eventually and let me know how/if you'd like me to reply. If you don't care either way, here's a collective thanks for reading and reviewing!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Wick stops by the babysitter's to pick Grace up before heading back to the hospital. He had checked in with the front desk after every rescue for updates on his brother's status, but he hadn't had the chance to actually go see him in his room, having been kept busy by calls all throughout his long twelve-hour shift.

"_¿Gracie hizo hacer su tarea?"_ he asks Señora Lopez.

"_Sí, por supuesto,"_ the babysitter replies proudly. Gracie is very good about completing her schoolwork.

"_Gracías, Tita,"_ Wick says, and puts his arm around his daughter. "Hey, hun, I gotta tell you something."

Grace hitches her school backpack up on her shoulders and hands her dad her overnight bag. "I can't have a pony for my birthday?"

"Funny, kid."

"But I want one."

Wick sighs. He hates this. He doesn't know how to tell his daughter that Eliot is not exactly invulnerable to getting hurt. "Uncle Eliot's in the hospital," he says, just to get pulling the band-aid off over with, "He's hurt, but the doctors say he'll be okay."

Grace's eyebrows immediately meet in the middle. "What happened?"

"He got shot. We got the call, so we went, and surprise. There he was. Damn idiot," he adds, more as an aside to himself than to his daughter.

"But he'll be okay," Grace says to make sure.

"Yes, he will."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Grace says, and tugs him all the way to the car.

There are three more people aside from Eliot and his friend Hardison when they get there. Grace ignores their presence and makes a beeline for the hospital bed. She gazes down at the still figure and takes his limp hand in hers.

Wick looks at her, at his brother and all of his grim-faced friends, and thinks with a little shudder of déjà vu that this is what _his_ hospital room must have looked like seven months ago.

He steps forward, a cordial smile on his face. "Hi, I'm Wick. You must be Eliot's friends."

"Yeah," Hardison says, and points around the group to introduce them. "This is Nate, Sophie, and Parker."

He points to a spot right next to Wick when he gets to the last name, making the paramedic turn to see what the hell the guy's pointing at.

"Hi," a perky blonde says, right in his space.

Wick jolts back. "Hi."

"Did I scare you? Your reflexes aren't as good as Eliot's," the blonde, Parker, comments.

"My reflexes are as good as they need to be for my job," he counters, making her tilt her head and nod in agreement.

"Like Hardison," she says, as if that makes perfect sense.

"Hey," Hardison whines, "What that s'pposed to mean?"

The potential argument is avoided by Gracie suddenly turning and storming up to her father. "Daddy, you and Uncle Eliot need new jobs," she says, hands on her hips. "You get hurt too much."

Wick blinks for a couple of seconds. "Okay, but if we didn't do our jobs, a lot more people would die. You wouldn't want that, do you? Besides, Eliot wasn't working when he got hurt, and my accident was an _accident._ I coulda been hanging Christmas lights or somethin'. Medical help could have been miles away. But no. My team was right there when it happened, for both of us."

Grace's bottom lip wobbles, and a fat tear rolls down her cheek. Wick envelops her in a hug. "Come on, honey," he says into her hair, "He's gonna be fine. He's always alright, isn't he? This isn't his first rodeo."

"Don't want him to die," she says into his chest.

"He's not gonna die," he reassures her. "He's not gonna die, baby." Feeling his daughter's arms tight around his waist (the pressure on his side still hurts a little, but he ignores it), he bends down and says, "Remember what you did for me? You held my hand and talked to me the whole time? Why don't you do that for him? He'll wake up and be all growly and annoyed because you talked his ear right off."

Grace lifts her head and glares at him with a tearful pout. "You're mean, Daddy."

"Okay," Wick says, and ruffles her hair. "You can tell him that."

She rolls her eyes and goes to do what he'd told her to do. She takes her uncle's hand again and sighs. "Daddy's being mean. And totally lame. Again."

Wick sighs and makes eye contact with the man called Nate. He nods subtly towards the door and walks out.

"Was he working?" he asks when Nate meets him in the corridor outside Eliot's room.

"No," Nate replies cautiously, "not at the time."

"Before or after a job?" Wick asks.

Nate pauses.

"I know what he does," Wick goes on. "Before or after a job? Why are you all in town?"

"You know what he does?" Nate repeats, trying to get more information out of him.

"Yeah, he's a traveling salesman who gets mugged every week," Wick says, "Yes, I know what he does. I'm his brother. He might not tell me everything, but he tells me enough. Now you tell me if anyone's gonna be coming after my family while he's down for the count."

"No," Nate says slowly, "No one should be coming. We just arrived in town last night."

Wick nods. "Okay. Thank you." He pauses, looks closely at Nate's uneasy countenance. "You don't like hospitals." Blue eyes flick down, taking in Nate's body language and analyzing it, then back up. "But not because of Eliot. He doesn't do hospitals, not usually. Someone else."

"It's none of your business," Nate snaps, as always, turning prickly when any mention of anything related to his son is made.

Eliot's brother nods. "Right. You're right. It's not. I'm sorry for prying. It's just, in my line of work, I see a lot of people with that exact same reaction. It's tough to have to come back here after a traumatizing experience. It helps to talk about it."

Nate says nothing.

"Obviously, not to a complete stranger who only looks like someone you know," Wick smiles self-deprecatingly, "But it's worth keeping in mind."

With that, he turns and goes back into the room, leaving Nate with a thoughtful expression.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

Spanish Translations:

_¿Gracie hizo hacer su tarea? - _Did Gracie do her homework?

_Sí, por supuesto. - _Yes, of course.

_Gracías, Tita. - _Thank you, Tita.

* * *

Review Replies to anons:

**Bron**: This is **bprice**, right? I was trying to remember where I saw that name before. So in reply to your review for the _Close to Home_ story: Wow, you actually saw some of that show! That's more than most people have. For this story: It's okay, I'd be surprised if you have seen this show. If you look in the ANs for my 23 Chromosomes story, I have some places where you can see the show and read fanfic about it. It's not much, but that's what's out there. Thanks!

**Lee:** _Ice Age_? Whatever do you mean? *innocent* As for whether you'll see the rest of the Rescue 77 team, I'm still working on it. I'm not done writing this story, and I still have no idea where I'm going with it, but rest assured, you probably will see Bell and Ryan.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Grace is sitting in a chair right up next to the hospital bed with Eliot's hand in hers when Wick walks back into the room. She has already finished telling him about how infinitely un-awesome Daddy is and has gone on to telling him about her school day.

Wick passes by the second chair that someone has thoughtfully set out for him and goes straight to Grace's, picking her up out of it and setting her on his lap.

"Daddy!" Grace flails angrily for a moment. "What are you doing? I'm not a little kid anymore."

"Oh, I'm sorry," he says, "I'm traumatized because I spent my morning trying to keep my brother alive, and there was blood and sirens and screaming - okay, most of the screaming was me - and I need a pretty girl to comfort me."

Grace huffs and leans back into him, arms crossed. "You are so _lame."_

Wick shifts her in his arms so that he can look at the side of her face. "Aw, come on. I have my cool days, right? Once a week? Once every two weeks?"

"Try once a year," Grace says in complete exasperation, but with the twinkle back in her eyes. Good.

"Aw, is that for Christmas or your birthday? Because that's coming up next week, and I already got your present." He shakes his head. "Nah. You probably don't want it anyway. It's lame. I should take it back to the store."

Grace turns in his lap. "Daddy," she says, and hits him in the shoulder.

"Whoa," Wick catches her wrist. "Hey, did Uncle Eliot teach you how to do that?" he asks gravely.

"Thumb goes on the outside," Grace says with a smirk. "Don't wanna break it while you're punching someone's lights out."

Sophie shakes her head and hides a smile. Of course Eliot taught his niece how to defend herself.

Wick groans. "Oh, man. Hey, Eliot," he says to the unconscious man on the bed, "You better wake up soon because we've got a lot to talk about. Mainly what you've been teaching Gracie behind my back. Next, you'll have her throwing knives or something." He catches the mischievous look on the girl's face. "Oh, no, you've already covered that one, haven't you? Lots to talk about, man. Wakey-wakey."

The team watches Eliot's brother with curious expressions.

Parker sees a guy with a bad sense of humor because you're not supposed to laugh at sick, hurt, and dead people. Or so she has been told many a time.

Sophie sees a loving father whose daughter doesn't think that he is as 'lame' as she says he is because of the way she curls right up and puts her head on his shoulder, like she's very comfortable in that position and has fallen asleep there many a time, just like that. She sees the worry entrenched in his every word and motion, worry for his brother, worry for his daughter's emotional state. This, she thinks, is a good, honest man, the man Eliot might have been had he not taken a different path.

Hardison looks at them and sees the differences. The way Grace's hair is so much lighter than Wick's, the shapes of their noses and their brow ridges, the differences in the shade of their skin. She is definitely not his kid, not biologically, anyway. It's weird, the way the Lobos adopted Grace. It's not as if they wouldn't have been able to adopt the normal way, instead of going to so many lengths to adopt illegally and hide the whole shebang.

Nate sees them and it hurts. He sees the way the man holds the girl, as if she is the most precious thing he has ever held, sees _that_ look in his eyes that make his so different from Eliot's - the mark of a father. He remembers Wick's words to him, remembers the earnestness that he thinks Eliot must have had at one time but that Wick had never lost. He also sees the way Hardison looks at the father and daughter, as if he sees something different from the rest of them. He makes a note to question him about it later.

During the long vigil at Eliot's beside, Wick nods off and jerks awake on more than one occasion, the busy hours of his shift finally catching up to him. Gracie, after a few hidden sniffles in his shirt, had fallen into deep slumber hours ago. Glancing at his watch, he brushes her golden hair off of her face and stands with slow, stiff movements. He carries Grace to the fold-out sofa in the corner of the hospital room, but Parker beats him to it.

"Isn't this one of those sofas that turns into a bed?" she asks, making the tired Wick startle and almost drop his precious cargo.

"Yeah," he says, recovering, "but I don't have my hands free to pull it out." As if to prove his statement, Grace shifts in her sleep and wraps her arms tighter around her father's neck.

"I can do it," Parker says, and does so. She also zips to the cabinet and pulls out sheets and a blanket. With quick, efficient movements, she makes the bed and turns back the covers so Wick can set his daughter down.

"Thanks," he says gratefully, and untangles Grace's arms from around his neck. She makes a sound of protest. "It's a bed, hun. Go back to sleep." The tight grip loosens, and he pulls the covers up to her neck. Her shoes, he places on the floor next to the fold-out bed.

He reaches for her bag and takes out a well-worn teddy bear, which he tucks into the sleeping girl's arms.

"Love you, Daddy," she says drowsily through a yawn.

"I love you, too, baby," he replies, completely unabashed at showing his true feelings in a room full of strangers. He bends down to kiss her forehead. "Sweet dreams, Gracie."

Something in Nate's gut churns at the gentle, simple gesture _("Sweet dreams, Sammy")_ so he turns his attention back to his hitter.

Just in time, it seems, because the scarred fingers are now curled up into fists instead of lying flat on the sheets. There's a slight sheen of sweat on the furrowed brow that tells Nate that Eliot is in the dangerous, murky darkness between drugged sleep and painful awakening.

"Eliot," he says - not too close because he doesn't want to be the target of a drug-hazed attack, "Eliot, it's Nate. The team is safe. You are safe."

Hearing the order of the reassurances, Wick reevaluates his assessment of the leader of the group. He knows Eliot well, very well. Even so...

Eliot grimaces and, still groggy, suddenly surges up to attack when he hears someone talking near him.

Wick darts in and intercepts the striking arm with a surprisingly strong grip. "Hey! Eliot!" He grunts painfully when Eliot's knee hits his chest, "Eliot, stop! It's me. Breathe. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here."

Eliot groans and curls in on his stomach. "Wick?" he gasps. "Hospital? No hospital. You know that."

"Yeah," his brother says, and puts his arm around Eliot's back to help him _(make him)_ lie down again. "Tough, big guy. Stay in bed. Don't move. You have two gunshot wounds to the abdomen, remember? You are _not_ checking out of here until the doctor gives you the green light. Understood?"

"Like hell," Eliot grumbles. "Lemme up."

"Eliot," Wick says quietly, and taps the stubbled cheek with his palm to get his attention. "Listen to me very carefully. You made Gracie cry. That is not something I take lightly, not even if it's you or me. So you _will_ stay in bed for a _minimum_ of three weeks, and you will _not_ take jobs for another month after that."

The Leverage team's gazes go from one brother to the other, fascinated by this man who can so presumptuously order Eliot Spencer around.

"Blackmail?" Eliot glares, now awake and fully aware, "That's low. Bet it was crocodile tears."

"What, you don't think I can tell real tears from fake ones? She was scared that you were going to die. She loves you, man. Just," Wick sighs wearily and drops into his chair, "Just for once, do what the doctor ordered and rest. I won't make a fuss about what you do when you're not here, but when you are, when you're here where Gracie can see you, behave. Okay?"

"Wick," Eliot whines (yes, _whines),_ "you're not serious."

"And no flirting with the nurses to get them to help you escape."

"Ha!" laughs Parker, and Hardison grins wide.

Eliot glares. "Seriously?"

Wick leans back in his chair. "Seriously. And by the way, while we're at it, stop teaching Gracie how to throw punches and knives and whatever the hell else you've been doing. I've already got Ryan with her crossbow teaching her how to be a Little Miss Amazon copy of her. I even caught Bell showing her how to work the stock market."

Eliot grins. "Aw, come on. A little knife throwing compared to that is harmless."

Parker nods her silent agreement. Stocks manipulation is definitely more terrifying than sharp projectiles. Look at Hardison and Eliot. See?

"Says you." Wick rubs his face and yawns.

"When's your next shift?" Eliot asks, seeing by the stubble on the men's faces around him that he hasn't been out for more than a day - almost, but not more than.

He knows that his brother's work schedule is two twelve-hour day shifts, two twelve-hour night shifts, and four days off. If he had been on his second day shift the morning before, when he and his team answered the call at the coffee shop, his next check-in time won't be until that night, but if he had been on his first day, then work should begin again very soon.

Wick bites his lip. "In half an hour."

"You idiot," Eliot growls, "you need to be rested and alert for your job. Hell, you shouldn't even be working yet, ya hypocrite. Six months ago, you were in a coma from having a metal pole shoved clean through you. You shouldn't be working. You're not a hundred percent."

The team's eyes go to Wick, morbidly curious to see what his reaction to being reminded of his horrifying accident would be.

Wick winces and unconsciously rubs his side where he has a seven-inch scar under his shirt, now a little sorer than usual from catching his brother's knee with it. "I caught some shuteye while we were waiting for you to wake up." His eyes flicker up guiltily to meet Eliot's.

His brother gives him a long look and sighs. "Fine. Go on. Go save lives. Just make sure you avoid heavy lifting - that means no picking up those stretchers, and forget running into burning buildings - and I won't even tell Gracie that you're not taking care of yourself."

Wick shoots him an annoyed look. "Gee, thanks for not tattling, El."

"Anytime, hero," Eliot smirks.

Wick rolls his eyes and stands. "I still don't understand why she thinks _I'm_ the lame one."

"It's cause you're her dad, that's why," Eliot answers.

It's just a flicker, but Sophie catches _something_ in Eliot's voice and in Wick's body language when he says that that tickles her brain.

"Guess so." Wick goes over to the sofa to tuck the covers more securely over Grace's sleeping body, one arm wrapping around his ribs as he bends down, as if the newly-healed injury still pains him.

He turns to his brother's friends. "Are you guys planning on sticking around here for a while? Usually, I'd take Grace to the sitter's if I have to work on Saturday, but I have a feeling she'll be upset if I do that today."

"Oh yes, of course," Sophie reassures him, although she is quite horrible with children, "We'll keep an eye on her. She'll be in good hands."

Wick says his thanks and shoots another warning look at Eliot to _stay in bed_. Rubbing his tired eyes, he makes an executive decision to buy coffee from the diner across from the hospital rather than the disgusting dribble sold in the cafeteria.

It is only when he is a block away from the station when he realizes how his brother had turned the attention away from himself and manipulated Wick into leaving before he could get Eliot to agree to anything.

He hits his steering wheel, downs half of his coffee, and thinks, he really should not be working today.

Then he hits the wheel again, just for the heck of it. "I hate you, Eliot."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: **irma66**, here's your teddy bear! At this point, I'm not sure if it's Wick's bear from the show, or if it's a different one.

Edit: I'm an idiot. I put "Thumb goes on the inside" instead of "outside." I have no idea why. I _know_ that it's supposed to go on the outside...Seriously, why did I type that? Oh, I know. I changed the line and forgot to change the whole thing. *facepalm* Anyway thanks to the anon reviewer who pointed it out.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: So I realized that I hadn't updated this one in a while (mostly because I was too busy freaking out about school and being depressed and posting other one-shot stories...), so here's the next chapter, just in case you were thinking that this is going to be another abandoned story.

This chapter: Eliot and Grace. Finally.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Once Wick leaves the room, Eliot sinks back into his pillows with a relieved sigh. Just because Wick had caught Eliot at a vulnerable time doesn't mean he can reciprocate all the "mother-frickin'-henning," as he'd called it, that Eliot had bestowed on him when he'd been the one confined to a bed.

Still, it worries him that Wick had been so incapacitated by his weariness that he hadn't even caught on before he'd left the room. Eliot had meant it when he'd said that Wick shouldn't be working yet. It's too soon after the accident. Okay, if it was Eliot in his brother's shoes, he probably would have gotten fed up and done the same, but Wick doesn't _have_ to always be on the alert like Eliot does; there's no one gunning for him, so there's no need to get back at the top of his game so soon. (Well, okay, Wick would probably argue the "saving lives" line, but that's beside the point.)

"You're the older one," Sophie says, smiling. She understands exactly what has occurred.

Eliot smirks tiredly, "Yeah, I am. Probably take him a few minutes to get what just happened, he's so tuckered out. How much did he sleep, anyway?"

"Well, he wasn't lying about catching a few winks," Nate says, "but no, not too much. He seemed very concerned about you, you know."

"He's an ol' worrywart," Eliot says, and sits up again, slowly and painfully. As he starts to swing his legs over, he finds Parker standing right where he was going to plant his feet. "What?"

Parker glares menacingly at him with her arms crossed. "You're supposed to stay in bed. Wick said so."

Eliot stares at her incredulously. "Well, he ain't my daddy. Find where they stashed my clothes, will ya?"

Parker continues to stand where she is. "They cut them up before they operated on you. Wick said he'll get you new clothes when the doctor says you can leave. And he took your wallet and keys and stuff."

Eliot groans and slumps on the bed. Dammit, Wick.

Then Parker reaches behind her back and pulls out the wallet and keys with a sly grin.

Eyes lighting up, Eliot reaches for them but finds them snatched out of his reach.

"Behave," Parker chides and flounces away.

Dammit, Wick. Was he trying to get back at Eliot for teaching Gracie stuff by teaching _Parker_ how to do _that?_ Seriously.

Sophie smiles at the expression on his face. "Come on, Eliot. Just think of this as an opportunity to sleep in. We don't get to do that very often, now, do we?"

Eliot glowers at her, just on principle, and shifts on the bed, trying to get comfortable. He leans back and heaves an immense, put-out sigh. Okay, maybe the painkillers are doing their job because he's feeling a little sleepy. Strike that - very sleepy.

Sophie's hand is cool on his forehead. He throws her another glare for making him feel tired, and completely ignores the titters from Parker and Hardison.

"Get some rest, Eliot," Nate says, "We'll take watch for now, but we need you at your best as soon as possible."

Eliot scowls all around at his manipulative teammates and gives in with a sigh. Just as he is about to fall asleep, he is startled wide awake by a loud thump.

"Ow!"

"You okay, Gracie?" He cranes his neck to see.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Grace says as she scrambles up from where she'd rolled right off of the fold-out bed, and then, "Uncle Elly! You're awake!"

She stubs a toe on the way to his hospital bed, trailing her blankets behind her, but she finally makes it more or less in one piece. The almost-fuzzless teddy bear bumps his nose as she hugs him as gingerly as she can manage. "Hi, Elly!"

"God musta had a funny sense of humor when He called you Grace," he rumbles when her elbow hits his chest in her haste to snuggle against him. (It doesn't hurt, nah, not at all.)

Grace pulls back and smirks at him. "I thought you named me," she says, "Calling yourself God now? That's presumptuous."

"And that's a mighty big word for a nine-year-old," he retorts, ignoring the pricking up of his teammates' ears, "Do you even know what it means?"

"Of course I do," she huffs. "It's on my word-a-day calendar that Uncle Michael got me. And I'm almost ten, you know."

"Of course I know that. Bell got you a calendar?" Eliot snorts. 'Course he did. That's the kind of gift one would expect from Michael Bell.

"Yeah, last Christmas," Grace says, "What are you giving me for my birthday? It's next week."

Eliot levels a severe gaze at his niece. "What makes you think I'm gonna tell you? Tryin' ta take advantage of me while I'm all drugged up? Huh?"

Grace grins mischievously at him. "It worked on Dad."

"Well I ain't him, honey," Eliot smiles, and chuckles as much as he can without using his stomach muscles when she plants a kiss on his cheek. "And don't think you can soften me up like that, either, missy. You'll get your present on your birthday, and not a minute before."

Grace giggles and drags the chair close to the bed with her foot. She sits with her socked feet up on the seat and her legs folded up to her chest. The bear peeks out from over her knee, winking at him.

"You look tired," she says presently. "Go back to sleep."

"And you're bossy. Someone oughta do somethin' about that."

Parker outright guffaws at that.

Grace looks at him with her arms around her knees (the bear, Tuffy, watches him with a sterner-looking gaze) and the big blue eyes begin to fill with tears, and -

"Alright, alright. Stop it with the fake crying already," he grumbles and closes his eyes, again ignoring the titters of his team. "See, sleeping."

"Liar." He hears her get back up again, and feels her breath on his cheek. "I'm happy you didn't die, Uncle Elly," she whispers. _("Elly,"_ grins Hardison, _"Elly.")_

He opens his eyes a crack to glare at the hacker, and smiles at his niece. "Not gonna happen, kiddo." He raises a hand to tuck a strand of blond hair behind her ear. "Who else is gonna buy you crazy-expensive, obnoxious gifts? None of your dad's friends seem to understand that the job of an uncle is to annoy the kid's parents as much as possible."

"So you're getting me a pony for my birthday, right?"

He winks. "Sure thing. Your dad's gonna blow."

"Awesome!"


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Again, late with the update. Sorry. Not that all that many people are reading this, right? :P Too obscure? Yeah, probably, especially since most people are only in it for the _Leverage_ part. That pretty much makes this chapter a complete fail because Nate's in it, but as an observer, and Sophie makes a guest appearance. Everyone else is either _R77_ or my OC Grace. My bad. Whatever. It will get more exciting soon. Promise.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Wick walks into the rec room back at the fire station and is greeted by a scene that leaves him tight-lipped and fuming.

Ryan finds him later in the shower room with his shirt off, glaring at the reflection of the twisted, grotesque scar on his torso in the mirror.

"This is the men's room," he growls at the tall blonde. He doesn't bother addressing the fact that the door had been locked, since locks of any kind are of no use in a fire station, where everyone knows how to pick them.

"Oh really?" she says calmly, and turns the sign on the door over. "Now it's the women's."

He scowls.

She leans against the counter. "They didn't really mean it, you know. It happens to everybody."

The station thrives on practical jokes. Wick knows this, having been involved in both ends of the pranking many times over the years, less on the butt end now that he is no longer the probie. But walking into a room filled with fainting men, one in particular who had taped empty paper towel rolls to his front and back to make it look as if he had a pole going through his body…the laughter. That had been beyond humiliating.

Wick gives his scar another glare and puts his shirt on. "It's been months, Ryan. I can't- I _need_ to do my job. I need to be able to carry that oxygen tank and the equipment and- What kind of firefighter asks for assistance carrying someone out of a building? Huh? Not even a two hundred pounder, but a- a tiny old woman?"

"Seven months," Ryan says, crossing her arms. "It's only been seven months. And you're really not supposed to be working yet. You're not fully recovered."

Wick rolls his eyes and fights the cough that rises up in his chest from breathing in all that smoke earlier. "My brother, the one who got shot yesterday, told me that this morning. He's in a hospital bed with two gunshot wounds, and _he's_ telling _me_ not I'm not ready to work." He throws up his hands. "Seriously! I'm sick and tired of being treated like an invalid. I'm not. I can work." He stomps to the door.

"Wick," Ryan sighs, and blocks his exit. "No one expected you to wake up from that coma. No one, except for Grace. I happen to know for a fact that they were talking to Eliot about pulling the plug. No one here was asking if you'd woken up yet. The question was if anyone had heard any news. No one wanted to ask if you'd died yet, but that was what everyone was thinking." She puts a gentle hand on his arm. "Give your body time to recover. Because you will get better, okay? You will."

He rubs his face and breathes slowly. In, out, in, out. "It's taking too long," he says wearily, "I feel..." he grimaces, "old. My back hurts if I do anything too strenuous, and my abdominals bother me if I twist the wrong way. My digestion's shot. I've lost weight. I'm exhausted all the time. I feel old. It sucks."

Ryan laughs, truly amused by his long string of complaints that ended in a childish whine and pout. "You done?"

Wick sighs and leans against the counter. He rubs his face again. "Yes. Stop laughing at me."

"You're not old," Ryan says, going back to his list of grievances, "You're a full ten years younger than I am."

Wick, appreciating the caring gesture made by his friend, opens his eyes wide open in a show of great surprise. "Ten years? Why, that's- "

"Don't say it," Ryan warns.

Wick gives her his best devil-may-care grin, pushing his woe-is-me sentiments down. "What, I can't say that you don't look a day over twenty-five, Miss Kathleen?"

She shakes her head and socks his shoulder. "You flatterer. Someday, that mouth of yours is gonna get you into trouble."

He smirks. "It never has yet. Actually, Jess used to say that my mouth was her favorite feature, after my- "

"Don't finish that," Ryan says again.

"Why Kathleen, I was only going to say that she fell for my charismatic personality. What were you thinking of?" Big blue eyes bat innocently at her.

"Are you done having your midlife crisis now?" Ryan says wryly. She lets him open the door for her, just to give him back some of his masculine pride.

"Who's calling who old now?" Wick asks and scoffs. "Midlife. I ain't half done living yet, Ryan."

"That's the spirit, Lobo. Now let's go rescue some little old ladies."

"And cats. Can't forget the cats."

"Cats, too," Ryan agrees, "We're the all-American, all-purpose paramedic team."

"Damn straight," Wick grins.

Ryan pats his back. "Hey, I know we keep saying this, but it's good to have you back, Wick."

He smiles at her, the laugh lines around his eyes crinkling as he does so. "It's good to be back." A beat later, he says, "We keep gazing into each other's eyes like this, Bell's gonna get jealous."

Ryan rolls her own eyes at him. "Ruin the moment, why don't you?"

"'S what I do."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The previous night had been long and tiring. They had sat and watched Eliot sleep off the effects of the drugs they'd administered during surgery, and when he had finally awoken in the morning, he had gone right back to sleep after only a few minutes awake. Granted, that short time had been filled with interesting revelations, mostly in the form of his relationships with his brother and niece.

Sophie, Hardison, and Parker had been sent off to their hotel to get some rest, while Nate took the first shift and remained to watch over their hitter…and his niece, Grace Lobo.

After her Uncle Eliot had fallen back asleep, she had looked around at the others in the room to whom she had paid almost no attention the night before, and asked if they were his friends. Having confirmed that fact, she had settled down with a book to watch and observe them quietly in a manner creepily like her uncle.

Nate had been afraid that awake and satisfied that Eliot would not die, Grace would be the energetic type of child who simply can't stay still and needs constant supervision, but five minutes alone with her (after sending the rest of the team to bed) revealed her to be mature enough that she could entertain herself quite well. Another hour showed him that she is also on very familiar terms with the hospital staff.

"Hi Megan," she chirps over her book to the nurse who comes in to check on Eliot's status.

"Hey, Grace," the dark-haired woman says, pulling out an electronic thermometer, "Back here again, huh? As soon as we got your dad out of here, your uncle decided he missed us too much? You should tell these guys to stop having accidents all the time."

Grace rolls her eyes. "Oh, I know. I already did," she replies with a quick grin.

Megan tuts under her breath over Eliot's temperature.

"Does he have a fever? That means infection, right?" Grace immediately asks worriedly. She looks at the monitor. "And his oxygen levels are low, aren't they?"

"Only a little," Megan says lightly, not wanting to worry her, "That's normal after surgery. It doesn't necessarily mean infection. I heard he woke up and was acting his normal grumpy self." At Grace's nod, she says reassuringly, "That's a good sign. He'll be fine."

Grace heaves a sigh and leans back in her chair with her arms crossed over her teddy bear (still in her lap), and hooks a foot over the hospital bed railing. Megan taps her knee with a disapproving look, prompting an impish grin from the girl.

Megan shakes her head with an amused smile. "All you Lobos are the same. You think a charming smile will get you anything. Well, think again, kid. Feet off the bed."

"You think my uncle has a charming smile?" Grace asks, putting her foot back on the floor. "Or my dad? How would you like to be my mom? I'm a great kid."

"And stop playing matchmaker," Megan scolds with a laugh, "We've got enough of your dad doing that around here."

"Uncle Michael and Aunt Kathleen are still happy, and it's been like, six months," Grace comments, "Besides, I'm _bored."_

"Read your book, honey," Megan says, shaking her head again, marveling at just how much like her father she is.

She and Bell had gone out _years_ ago, but she'd moved on, and so had he, although it had taken a push (more like two shoves, really) from the very bored and bedridden Wick to finally get his two stubborn teammates, Bell and Ryan, together after years and years of unresolved sexual tension.

After the nurse leaves, the mischievous air drops and the girl's demeanor turns grim. She takes to touching her uncle's hand every few minutes, as if to check for herself that he's still alright.

She trades cheerful greetings with the doctor who comes in to check on Eliot, too, as well as a couple more nurses as the hours go by, one of whom brings them sandwiches from the hospital cafeteria. However, when she and Nate are left alone with the hitter, who is lying still, too still and too pale, in the bed, the sunny smile fades abruptly and a worried little line appears on her forehead.

Wick comes in around midday, looking tired and slightly grey around the bags under his eyes. "Hey, baby," he says, and drops a quick kiss on his daughter's head.

"Hey, Dad," Grace replies, and wrinkles her nose. "You smell like smoke. Fire rescue today? Already?"

"Just the one," Wick replies. Nate detects a slight wheezing quality to his voice, which Grace evidently picks up on as well.

"_Dad."_

"What?" Wick blinks innocently at her.

"You ran into the fire without waiting for backup, didn't you? Again?" Grace admonishes. "You _promised_ you'd take it easy. _Promised_, Dad. Pinky swore and crossed your heart and everything."

Wick scoffs disbelievingly, annoyed that everyone seems to be worried about him, instead of the guy who is actually in the hospital bed. "Sweetheart, as a matter of fact, that is an unjust accusation because I am doing just fine letting everyone else do the heavy lifting."

He doesn't tell her about his pathetic rescue attempt because one, she doesn't need to know that he was actually _in_ the fire, and two, it's embarrassing that he'd collapsed under the weight of a seventy-year-old…and the effects of the smoke he'd inhaled while giving the old lady his oxygen.

The ticklish cough that rises in his throat just then gives the whole game away, however.

While he hacks away and thumps at his chest, Grace runs her hands through her hair and gives a dramatic, full-hearted groan. "Seriously, Dad. If you die, and Uncle Eliot dies, what's gonna happen to me? Foster care, that's what."

Wick chuckles between coughs and ruffles Grace's now-mussed hair. "Glad to see you've got your priorities straight, missy. We're not gonna die, okay?" He turns his attention to his sleeping brother. "The lovely ladies over at the nurse's station said he's doing just fine. So don't be worrying about him, alright?"

Actually, Megan had mentioned a slight fever, higher than she and the doctors would like, but otherwise, Eliot is doing okay…for now.

The radio at his belt crackles to life, making both Lobos sigh. Wick kisses his daughter's cheek and gives her a quick hug. "Keep him in bed, 'kay? Don't let him run. You have my permission to do your worst, Gracie-girl."

"My worst, Dad?" Grace rolls her eyes sarcastically.

"You know," Wick says from the door, "The thing you do," he twirls his finger in the air, "where he ends up baking you cookies for breakfast and brownies for dinner."

Grace sighs – _lame _– and shoos her father off to work. "Bye, Dad."

Nate hears the whispered _"I love you"_ she says under her breath when he's gone and wonders if it's something she had started doing after her father's accident, as a kind of secret protection, just in case.

Grace glances up and meets his eyes then, and for a brief moment, he sees a scared little girl before she blinks and the snarky almost-ten-year-old returns.

"I get it, I get it," she grumbles, as if anticipating his next words, "He's gonna be okay. I get it. I'm not gonna cry."

Still he sees the way she holds onto the worn-out teddy bear as if squeezing it hard enough would somehow make her uncle better.

Nate clears his throat. "They'll be okay," he says anyway, realizing that her anxiety is for both her uncle and her father, her family.

Tuffy gets squeezed a little harder, and tear-bright eyes look at Nate. "I know," Grace whispers, "But they're so stupid sometimes."

Nate has absolutely nothing to say to that, since yeah, Eliot can be a little reckless about his injuries, and he has a strong suspicion that his brother is just the same.

Nate hems again. "Well…yeah, okay. Sometimes they're stupid," he agrees, and gets a stink eye from over the teddy bear's head in return.

"They're _not_ stupid," Grace says, simultaneously contradicting herself as she defends her family members' honor, and huffs. "They're just…"

"Guys?" Nate asks tentatively.

"_Yeah."_

The conversation stops there, since Nate doesn't really want to upset the girl any further than he seems to have by agreeing with her. He wonders at what age exactly that particular feminine characteristic surfaces, thinking of both his wife and a certain grifter in his acquaintance.

Speaking of the devil…

"Hey, Sophie. Your watch."

As Nate makes his hasty departure, Sophie wonders why on earth he's so scared of a nine-year-old girl with _such_ a nice smile.

"Hello, Grace."

"Hi Sophie. Hey, are you single?"

* * *

Anon review reply:

Kaitibell: Thank you so much for your review for the last chapter of this story (and also the one for "Misunderstanding"). I'm glad you're enjoying this! Thanks!


	7. Chapter 7

AN: I know, I know, late update, very late. I apologize. First school, then the holidays. Busy, busy. But look! Shiny new chapter! *diverts attention of angry mob towards teh shinyyyy*

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Sophie learns quite a lot about Grace and her family during her shift at Eliot's bedside, the least of it being that Grace is quite a clever girl.

For one, she catches onto Sophie's information-searching manipulation game quickly, and even manages to avoid some of her questions, albeit with a slightly puzzled air of why exactly her uncle's friend wants to know such things.

Of course, the girl does come from an intelligent family – Eliot, as Maggie had said once, is often underestimated, and over the years, Sophie has learned that he is no less bright in his own quiet fashion than Nate and Hardison. And Wick, despite being tricked into leaving by his injured brother that morning, is by all accounts, a stellar paramedic, who, as one of the nurses had confided to Sophie, "really knows his stuff, even better than some of the doctors here."

So it's no wonder that Grace is quick enough to see what Sophie is doing. At least that's what she tells herself when she finds yet another probing question deflected by a segue into another, partially related topic (like how the doctor on the oncology floor likes brunettes with cool accents).

Eliot does that, deflects. Yes, come to think of it, Grace's methods are quite like Eliot's. Sophie wonders what other things besides knife-throwing and fighting he has been teaching his niece, or if that particular characteristic had somehow jumped sideways down the Lobo genetic line.

Eliot wakes up long enough to be scolded by Grace for developing a fever, "and maybe even an infection, Uncle Elly! An infection!"

He grumbles groggily and looks around the room for escape. He catches Sophie's eyes, _Help?_, only to get a smiling shake of her head in response.

"Go back to sleep, Elly," Grace orders, "That's how you get better."

Eliot raises his hand to give her a sarcastic "yes, ma'am" salute and obliges.

Sophie notices with a hidden smile that Grace latches onto that hand after she's sure he's asleep.

"His temperature's higher," Grace reports to the nurse who comes in soon after.

"Let me check," Megan says.

"It is," Grace insists, "His hand's warmer. It's hot."

"Hm, you're right," Megan says, "He's already on antibiotics, but I'll tell the doctor to increase his dose. Hey, Grace, you wanna go outside for a minute? I want to check his bandages, and it's not going to be pretty."

Grace looks like she wants to argue, but Sophie stands up and scoots her out the door before she can. "Come on. She's right, you know. Bullet wounds are _not_ pretty."

"Can't be any worse than what my dad has," Grace grumbles, but sits down obediently in a chair outside the room.

_Grumbles, but doesn't flat-out disobey, just like Eliot. Interesting,_ Sophie thinks. Perhaps it's because that's the way he and his brother were raised, so it would make sense that Wick would raise his daughter in the same manner. Still, the similarities are quite staggering, even within the family.

It's something to chew on while they wait for Eliot to wake up again. It will keep her mind from worrying about him so much. It's odd, caring about someone, a group of someones, as much as she does the team. It has been five years since she has been on her own, and she finds that she rather likes, no, _loves_, working with them, her family. They're her family now, and while working with them is easier, it's also harder in the sense that she _worries_ constantly about their safety.

Family.

It's odd; she had never really put much stock in family, not until now. She has used family against each other to get her way before, but she has never felt the need to build one of her own.

Until the team.

There's no blood amongst them, but they're closer to her heart than any of her kin had ever been. Her real family, no, her first, her second, her third, whatever they all were to her, none had ever been so important to her as this one, this, her last, yes, this will be her last, her final, her _real_ family. She's at home here in a way she has never been. She, the restless spirit, has finally settled. They all have.

But this, this new facet of Eliot's character, his history, this is a new thing to pick at. She'd always thought that Eliot had had a rather normal childhood, but that perhaps he'd broken things off when he had gotten into the more dangerous parts of his life. This, this brother and niece of his, they're a new part of his character, his psyche, for her to explore.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Eliot next wakes, it's Hardison's shift to watch him — and what is up with that? Like he needs someone to sit and watch him 24-7. It's creepy and even actually puts him on-edge, having people watching him sleep like that.

The hacker is pretty obvious about it, too, sending him sidelong glances over the top of his phone when he thinks Eliot's not looking. They're not worried glances, like Sophie's and Grace's had been, but furtive, suspicious looks.

"What?" he finally bursts out, annoyed, as per usual.

"Why didn't you tell us about your secret family?" Accusing. More accusing than a simple question about Wick and Grace would warrant.

"No one knew about them," Eliot answers, glad that Hardison had waited until they were alone in the room — Nate is at the hotel, and Sophie and Parker had gone with Grace to get a snack (and coax her into going outside for a change of scenery). "Because they're my family and they were a secret," he finishes snarkily because he's in pain and cranky since he's not allowed to run off to curl up and nurse his wounds on his own.

"How about stealing your brother a baby?" Hardison fires back, undeterred.

Eliot stares. This, this is not what he had been expecting. Hardison asking about Wick or Grace, maybe, but this? _Stealing_ a baby? "What?!" The wounds in his stomach twinge at the force of his outburst.

"Grace. She's adopted. And you _stole_ her for Wick and his wife- "

"Okay, one," Eliot interrupts, wagging a finger in Hardison's face in warning, "stay outta my brother's personal life. It's _personal_ and _private_, and you don't wanna see him when he's mad because I ain't got nothin' on him when he's riled up. Two, I didn't steal Grace."

"The adoption papers were fake. I traced the payment money to forge 'em straight to you. Ergo, you stole your brother a baby," Hardison says, standing up, angry. Eliot remembers briefly that Hardison had come from a foster family, so this has got to be a sore point with him. "Or you bought her."

"I didn't steal her! And I sure didn't buy her. She- " Eliot breaks off with a huff, curling his arm around his bandages and turning away from the nosy, annoying hacker. "This is none of your business. I'm done."

"She's yours," Nate says, walking into the room.

"How- "

Nate taps his ear. "You left your com on, Hardison."

Hardison mouths "whoops" and shoots Eliot a guilty look. He pulls out his phone and turns them all off.

Eliot lets his head fall back onto the pillow and closes his eyes. He rubs his sore eyelids with hot hands. "What is this, Jerry Springer?"

"She is. She looks just like you," Nate says quietly. She looks like Wick, therefore she looks like Eliot. They're brothers, twins. All the pieces of the puzzle are fitting neatly into place now. "She's yours, not your brother's."

The hitter opens his eyes with a tired expression. He sighs. He doesn't want to do this. Not now, not ever. "Don't you judge me, Nate. I did what I had to do to keep her safe. I gave her up to _protect_ her. I was- I was still working for Moreau at the time. I needed to get her someplace safe. Wick was safe. I was gonna try to raise her, but Wick was _safe_. That's it."

"Holy," Hardison begins, "Holy shit! You mean you didn't steal the baby? She's yours?"

"I can't steal from myself, Hardison," Eliot says wearily. "So no, I didn't steal the baby."

"Does she know?" Nate asks.

Eliot picks blood out from under his fingernails and gives a small smile, not meeting either of the men's eyes. "Does she know that I'm her father, and not her uncle? Does she know that she's only still alive because I did one of the hardest things I've ever done for her? Does she know that she _saved_ me? That _she_ made me want to become a better man? So she wouldn't be ashamed of me even if she didn't know about me? Does- "

"I'm not ashamed of you," Grace says softly from the doorway.

They all turn to look at her, Parker and Sophie coming up behind her, flanking her.

Grace comes forward. "I'm not ashamed of you, Uncle Elly." She climbs up onto the bed, moving gingerly to avoid the sore spots. "You're family. Doesn't matter if you're my uncle or my dad, doesn't matter, 'cause you're family and I love you, and you love me." She snuggles into his side, then pops her head up. "You do, don't you?" she asks, eyebrows descending accusingly.

The corners of Eliot's eyes crinkle and he flicks the end of her nose with a finger. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to, kid. Of course I love you."

"Then it doesn't matter." She plants a kiss on his cheek, gently, gently, while accidentally poking an elbow into his ribs.

"Keep your elbows outta my bruises, kiddo," Eliot grunts and pulls her into a less painful position. "Hit another growth spurt, huh? Gonna outgrow me, if you keep this up."

Grace makes a face at him. "Yeah, 'cause you're short."

"Face'll get stuck like that if the wind changes," he replies mildly and lies back against the pillows, scowling at the heat and uncomfortable stickiness of the sheets.

Hardison clears his throat. "You didn't just find out, did you?" That would be bad, even he knows that, messing with secrets and fragile family dynamics.

Grace raises her head and looks at him seriously. "No, I didn't. I found out when Dad — the guy I call my dad, I mean, even though he's actually my uncle — anyway, I found out when he got hurt. But I could've found out today. And that would have been traumatizing. Very traumatizing."

Hardison gulps under the force of her glare. Yep, definitely Eliot's kid. And Eliot knows what he's thinking because he's smirking behind _his_ glare. "What do you mean you coulda found out today?" the hacker asks cautiously.

Sophie sits down next to Nate and crosses her legs with a click of her high heels. She taps her ear. "We heard the first part of the conversation, Hardison. Parker's not one to _not_ ask about things she doesn't understand, you know, especially when it's about children." _And adoption_, she doesn't add, though it's there.

Parker purses her lips and perches herself quietly on the sofa in the corner of the room, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Hardison laughs nervously. "Right. Coms. Sorry."

"My dad's gonna be mad when he finds out you hacked into his stuff," Grace observes calmly, making Hardison shrink into his seat. Eliot had said that angry Wick is worse than angry Eliot, so that's...pretty damn...angry.

Grace cocks her head. "Did you find anything interesting? Aside from the boring adoption stuff, I mean."

"Attagirl!" Eliot grins and chuckles, ignoring the heaviness in his head and limbs, and pushing the pulsing, throbbing heat in his gut to the back of his mind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Elly, Uncle Eliot? Are you okay?"

"'m fine. 'm alrigh'."

"Elly? Elly, are you-?"

"Gracie. Don' be scared, honey. Don' be sca- "

"Uncle Elly!" "Eliot!"

"_Get the nurse! Hurry!"_

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

AN: Ooh, cliffie! *is evilz*

I know that this is kind of late in the game, but what should I call this 'verse? The "Grace" 'verse? The "Saving Grace" 'verse? Something completely different? Hmm...

Anon review replies:

Kaitibell: Glad I was able to introduce you to this totally obscure old series. ;D

Drjones: (For "The Long Way Home") As you can see, I couldn't update in time for Christmas, but I did make New Year's (and your birthday!). Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

AN: In case anyone is confused (aka didn't read the AN in the first chapter ;P), this story is a sequel to a couple of one-shots in my birthday fic collection, "Twenty-Three Chromosomes." Those two stories (Chapters 10 and 11 in the collection) have to do with Wick's accident (the one I keep mentioning in this one) and Grace finding out how she was adopted. Sorry for the confusion!

Further note: I don't do dream sequences as a rule, but this story seemed to call for one. And the formatting in the first section...it's an experiment, and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. It works on my screen, but if you're reading on a smaller/bigger screen, I'm not sure how it looks. If it looks too weird, let me know, and I'll line it all up to the left, like always.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

Fever dreams have a particular quality, a _distinctive_ quality, which differentiates them from other dreams.

_Grace. Always Grace; everything is Grace. _

_She's calling to him, scared, so scared – Why is she scared?_

_She's being pulled back, back, away from him – No, Grace! Grace!_

_He shouts her name, but she doesn't hear. She can't hear him. Why can't she hear him?_

_She's screaming for him, and for Wick. _

_Wick._

_Where's Wick? Wick is safe. She should be with Wick._

_He looks around for his brother. And he sees. _

_He wishes he hadn't._

_His brother, lying flayed open, still, too still, too much blood. Too _dead.

_Dead, dead eyes looking into his, blaming him._

_Brought danger here. Brought danger into _my_ home, to _my_ family._

_Dead._

_Anger. He feels anger. Grief. Fear. Guilt. And pain, fire running through his gut._

_Fire, burning. Cold. Ice-cold, fiery pain. Burning._

_Nausea._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eliot makes a wet, choking sound from the bed, making them all turn towards him anxiously.

His fever had gradually gone up during the day, and now, in the early hours of Sunday morning, he lies tossing and moaning against the stark-white hospital pillow, fingers twitching, and temperature dangerously high.

One hand to his bandaged torso, throat working, he struggles to sit up, only to be rolled over onto his side by a strong arm, and his head forcefully bent over…

…over a plastic basin, just in time.

"Easy, easy, Eliot," says Wick's voice soothingly over him as he vomits. A cool, dry hand rests on his neck, rubbing a little, comforting. The fire in his gut reminds him that he'd gotten shot there, twice.

After he's done, he's eased back onto his pillows, not flat on his back, but on his side. Then he's lifted up again, and a plastic cup is put to his lips.

"Rinse your mouth out, but don't swallow."

The water feels nice, and he wants to drink it, but his mind-reading brother repeats, "Don't swallow. It's too soon after surgery," so he doesn't.

He hears a babble of confused, anxious voices around him, but they don't make any sense at all. The only thing that makes sense is his brother. Wick's good at taking care of people. That's why he does what he does. Wick saves people. He's saved more of them than Eliot has killed, which makes him love him and hate him at the same time. But he's proud of him, mostly, proud of being his brother.

After he's done washing the bitterness out of his mouth, Wick lays him back down and starts wiping his face and neck with a wet washcloth. Eliot wants to stop him – it's completely humiliating, letting him do this – but the cool cloth feels too good on his hot skin to tell him that.

As his fever-addled mind clears for a moment, he remembers…he remembers that he has to warn his brother against…against something.

He reaches out and snags a handful of fabric. Soft cotton. T-shirt. "Wick. Wick?"

"Yeah, I'm right here," Wick says and rewets the cloth with more cool water. "This infection is doing a real number on you, man."

Eliot groans. "Grace, safe?"

There's a pause before Wick answers, sounding surprised. "Yeah, El. She's always safe with me. You know that. She's right here."

"Elly?"

There's something else…something else…but the darkness overcomes him and drags him down, and he sleeps.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Once Eliot drifts off again, Wick gives his brother's face one last gentle swipe with the cloth and drops down into his chair with a sigh, his back aching, head heavy with fatigue.

"Daddy? Is he gonna be okay?" Grace asks from the fold-out sofa with a small voice.

"Yeah, hun, he'll be fine," he reassures her, but doesn't know if it's a lie or not. He rubs his tired eyes and wishes for more coffee to magically reappear in his empty paper cup.

He can feel Grace watching him, just watching, until she says, "Dad? You need to go home. You didn't sleep last night and you have a night shift coming up. You had a fire rescue today, too. Fires are exhausting."

He just barely bites back the sharp, bitter anger that rises, and that's enough to convince him that she's right, because he never _ever_ lashes out at his daughter.

"That another calendar word?" he asks wearily instead. He _is_ exhausted.

"No. I already knew it," comes her smart-alecky reply. She comes over and stands next to him, leaning on him a little. His arm goes around her automatically.

He looks at his feverish brother in the hospital bed, and sighs again. He can feel the ache in his body, the need to lie down in a real bed, not the fold-out in the corner of the room that Grace has been sleeping in the last couple of nights (he'll be too stiff to function if he sleeps there), but…it's Eliot, and he's in the hospital. He's actually ill enough to be in the hospital, and Wick can't quite bring himself to leave. Eliot's his _brother_.

"We'll call if his condition changes," Nate says, and Wick's pretty sure that he's not imagining the possessiveness his brother's friends all seem to have over Eliot, which is good, but…

"_Dad._ You said he'll be okay," Grace says, turning his words around on him. She tugs on his arm. "Let's go home. Unless you were lying when you said that."

Manipulative. It's a talent, and Wick knows exactly where she got it from. And for Grace to say that _now_,Wick figures that he has to be looking pretty damn awful.

But he just can't stop looking at his brother. Eliot doesn't do hospitals. He doesn't. He's the kind of guy who patches himself up – Wick should know, since he'd taught Eliot most of his first aid knowledge. Eliot doesn't get sick, either, not really, not in years. And-

"_Daddy._ I wanna go home. It's past my bedtime. Yours, too."

He looks up into his daughter's worried face (she only wants to leave because of him - she's smart enough to weigh her choices and make the difficult decision: staying with Uncle Eliot in the hospital and Daddy possibly collapsing from _exhaustion,_ or leaving Uncle Eliot in the hospital - with professional medical help - for one night so Daddy can sleep it all off) and attempts to lighten the mood.

"Are you my daughter or my mother? Jeesh. Alright, alright, boss lady. We're going home."

He casts one last look of concern at his brother and stands.

Standing up is kind of a problem because his back decides to cramp up just then. He manages to (sort of) hide it until he's out of the room (using the back of the chair, and then Grace as a crutch for the first few staggering steps of it), but he has a feeling that he doesn't hide the weariness saturating his entire body quite so well. A good night's sleep will cure that, if he can sleep. Eliot's down and that's _not_ good.

Grace heaves an immense sigh, shakes her head, and mutters under her breath about _stubborn_ people who _don't_ take care of themselves and how is it _her_ job to do _everything?_

Wick just smiles and ruffles her hair, knowing how much she hates that.

"_Dad!"_

"What?"

She gives him a seething glare. "Ugh, never mind."

It's funny and endearing and adorable, so he does it again.

This time, she swats his hand and moves away, scowling. _"Dad!_ Stop it!"

"Okay, okay," he says, "You wanna hold my hand so it has something to do besides play with your hair?"

Grace gives him yet another "oh-so-lame" look, but puts her small hand in his. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic." He gives it a squeeze. "He'll be fine."

"Yeah, everyone keeps saying," Grace grumbles. "But he didn't look so good," she says, and looks up at him, his little girl again.

"Well," he says, and decides to go for the truth because Grace is old enough for that now. "Well, a gunshot wound isn't something you just shrug off, and he's got two of them, _and_ they're infected, so that is worrying. But he started out healthy, very healthy and strong. He's got a good chance of fighting it off, especially since he's here, and not in some war zone with no medical assistance. And that has happened to him before, more than once, and he's still alive. So you know, he's a fighter. His chances are good. He'll be fine."

Grace is silent for a while, which makes Wick wonder if maybe he shouldn't have said the "not good" parts, but once they're in the car and on the way home, she says, "You're worried, too, Dad."

Wick sighs. He can't deny that; he is. "He's my brother. I'm always worried about him, even when he doesn't have extra holes in his body. Just like I worry about you all the time," he adds with a smile at his daughter.

Grace crosses her arms and sighs. "I worry about you, too." She cocks her head and looks at him sideways. "Is that what family does? Worry about each other all the time?"

Wick chuckles, a part of him lamenting the fact that she doesn't see Daddy as invulnerable to harm anymore, that that part of her childhood is gone. "Sure. That's only a part of it, though. Family worries, family loves, they hate, and they forgive. Family's important, Gracie. Always remember that."

Grace snorts derisively. "I already know that. I'm the kid with two dads, remember?"

Wick grimaces. "I really wish you'd stop telling people that."

Grace grins. "Why not?" she giggles, although she does understand why, since they've had the "why some kids have two mommies or two daddies" talk before (but not the sex talk - Wick's still holding off on that for like, a decade or two) because her best friend has two moms.

Wick takes his eyes off of the road long enough to send her a loving glare. "Come here, you," he says and goes back to watching the road, reaching blindly for her head to mess with her hair again, and tickling her side when she ducks away. "You little troublemaker, you."

As Grace laughs, Wick's mind goes back to his brother, more ill than he has been in a long while, and _worries_. Because that's what family does.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Dad." The insistent voice cuts through the sleepy haze surrounding Wick's mind.

"Mrrrmgh," he says into his pillow. Too early.

"_Dad."_

Still too early, but the "dad" part of his brain musters up the energy to ask, "Grrrce? 's wrrrng?"

Then he remembers.

"Eliot!" he all but shouts, snapping up into a sitting position. He regrets it an instant later, when the muscles in his back and stomach clench up, and _everything_ in, on, and _around_ his poor, abused body protests.

Grace winces in sympathy and reaches for one of the orange prescription bottles on her groaning father's bedside table. She shakes out a pill and hands it to him. "Uncle Eliot's fine. His fever broke a couple of hours ago," she reports.

Wick dry-swallows the pain pill and carefully eases himself back down into a reclining position. "He's okay?" he asks when he gets his breath back.

Grace sits down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, he's okay."

Wick frowns. "The hospital called? I didn't hear the phone ring." Had he been that out of it? That's unlike him, very unlike him, he thinks, as he yet again curses his accident and the damage it has wrought on his life and family.

"No, Parker told me," Grace answers, "Can we go see him?"

Wick rubs his sweaty face, trying to wake the hell up. "What time is it?"

"Eight forty-five."

"Give me another hour," he sighs after a long pause. They'd gotten home late, and even he knows that without more rest, his newly returned strength isn't going to last much longer, much less another twelve-hour shift. He hadn't been able to sleep right away from worrying, but he had eventually drifted off, pure exhaustion and pain winning over his unease.

"Dad," Grace sighs at the obtuseness of her sleepy, uncaffeinated dad, "You don't have to drive me. Parker and Sophie are here to pick me up."

Wick blinks at her a few times. "Oh. They are?"

She nods. "Yeah. Can I go?"

"Yeah, you can go," he agrees, then adds, "Call me if- "

"If I need you to pick me up, if something bad happens, or if some stranger tries to bribe me with candy to get into his white van. I know, Dad," Grace snarks and slips off of the bed.

"Not funny, Grace," Wick says as sternly as he can manage while drifting back to sleep, "You do need to call me if anything like that happens, okay?"

"Yes, Dad. I understand," Grace groans. "Can I go now?"

Wick waves her off. "Yeah, go. What I was going to say was, 'Call me if anything happens with Uncle Eliot,' 'kay? Miss Smarty-Pants."

Grace stops at the doorway and smiles fondly at her father, who has his eyes closed and therefore can't see her expression. After a moment's deliberation, she runs back to the bed and kisses him lightly on the forehead. Then she runs back out of the room before he can open his eyes again.

"Bye, Dad!"

"Bye, Gracie."

She hears the amused chuckle behind the door as she closes it softly and smiles. Dad's lame, but he can't help it. She loves him anyway.

Permission granted to leave the house without her dad's supervision, she skips out to the garage to check on the washing machine. She had started helping out around the house more since her dad's accident, doing things like the dishes, the laundry, cleaning, and taking out the trash — without being asked to do them. She knows how hard being a single dad is, especially now that he can't really do _everything_, as much as he wants to hide it.

She snorts at the stupidity of macho-ness in guys as she reaches into the silent machine and pulls out...a pink shirt. And a pink sock. And a...red shirt.

Oops.

She'd done it again. Uncle Eliot had shown her how to do a lot of stuff during her dad's recovery, but the first time she'd done the laundry on her own (because how hard could it be, right? Just toss it all in and push the button), she'd forgotten the part where she has to separate the colors from the white clothes. Elly had growled and grumbled and finally laughed, but that was when he'd told her to learn and not make the same mistake twice.

Double oops.

How to fix this mistake...how...how...Oh yeah! Mommy used to be able to do the laundry a lot better than Daddy - and Uncle Eliot - can do it, for some weird reason. (She remembers that much of her mother.) Maybe it's a grown-up woman thing.

Good thing there's not one, but two grown-up women in the house right now!

"Sophie! Parker!" Grace runs into the living room and whisper-shouts (don't want to wake Dad up and let him see all his pink shirts, socks, and underwear), "How do you fix this?"

Sophie gives a ladylike snort when she sees the color of the wet man's t-shirt that is thrust into her hands.

"Oh, sweetie," she says with a smile, "don't worry; it's fixable."

"Oh, good," Grace sighs.

"Let's go shopping!"

Parker backs away and slips out of the closest window as fast as she can.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eliot dozes on and off throughout the day. He wakes up once in the early morning (according to the time on the monitoring screen by his bedside) to Nate snoring in an uncomfortable-looking position in the hard hospital chair, and Hardison tapping away on his phone and sending him furtive, _guilty_ looks.

The next time he wakes, Parker is there, and she looks...freaked.

"'s matter?" he asks groggily.

"Sophie took Grace _shopping,"_ she says, her voice dropping into a whisper as she says the dreaded word.

Eliot snorts and winces at the pull in his side. "Why's that? She need new clothes or somethin'?"

Parker leans close, wide-eyed in very real horror. "She turned all of the white stuff pink."

Eliot's eyebrows furrow as he tries to decipher what exactly she means by that. Then- "Oh. Grace turned the laundry pink again. Bet it's the same red shirt, too. Told her ta r'member to separate 'em all out."

"Your brother has pink underwear," Parker intones seriously.

Owww. "Don't make me laugh, Parker. Don't." Ow. Pink. Under- Owwww.

Nate brings his hand up to his chin to hide his smile, and Hardison outright grins. "Oh yeah, I done dat one before. Pink everythin', man. And I mean _everythin'._ I swear, if woulda I had _you_ in dat washin' machine, white boy, your ass woulda come out pink."

Sophie and Grace walk in at that moment, interrupting Eliot's snarling retort. Grace looks...traumatized, poor kid. Though, he bets she'll never have a load of pink laundry again in her life.

"C'mere, honey," he says with a small laugh and reaches out to her.

"Elly," Grace sighs, sounding relieved, and gladly goes, curling up against him. Eliot keeps an eye on all knobby elbows and knees to make sure they don't hit anything sensitive.

"You okay, darlin'?" he murmurs.

The blonde head moves up and down against his shoulder.

"You gonna remember next time?"

The head nods again.

"You're a good girl for trying to help your dad out, even if you had to go shopping with Sophie," he says, wanting to make her smile. He loves making her smile.

All he gets is a shrug.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," Sophie huffs. "It's just shopping."

The others in the room immediately look elsewhere.

Eliot feels the tremor go through the girl's body a moment before he hears the sniffle. He frowns and shoots a furious glare at Sophie. _The hell did you do to my girl?_ "Gracie? What's wrong, honey?"

A shoulder goes up and drops back down. More tears seep into the neck of his thin hospital gown.

"Grace? What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong."

"Scared me. Last night," comes the teary answer.

Shit. Wick's gonna kill him. Yep. Made Gracie cry. Again. "I'm sorry," he says gently, and tugs his hand through the thick tangle of blonde curls. "I didn't mean to." Because yeah, he didn't _mean_ to almost die from a couple of bullet wounds.

"Stop it," Grace hiccups, still not raising her head, "Wish you and Dad would just stop an'- an' just stop trying to get killed and pushing too hard." Her fist tightens around a handful of his sheets.

How to answer that one...Eliot thinks for a moment, searching for an answer. But he didn't even _do_ anything. He just got shot on a goddamn coffee run. He did what the doctor (and Grace) ordered. He kept his ass in bed, slept, didn't pull any tubes out, didn't do anything! Well, he did get shot in the beginning there, but that wasn't really an active choice. There was an innocent in danger, so he'd, you know, stepped in.

"I'm sorry?" he says in an attempt to pacify his niece, who is usually not quite so...weepy. He doesn't deal well with a crying Grace. He likes her happy and laughing. "Don't cry, honey."

"I'm not crying!" Grace erupts furiously and swipes at her face with her sleeve.

O-kay. He glances at the grifter. _Sophie, help?_

She raises an eyebrow at him, still miffed at the unjust silent accusation from before.

He throws her an apologetic look and tilts his head at the girl. _Please?_

Sophie huffs and steps closer, pulling a tissue out of her handbag in a fluid motion as she does so. "Grace?" she says as she dabs at wet cheeks, "It's alright, it really is, sweetie. Your uncle's going to get all better now, even though he scared _all _of us last night." Pointed look at Eliot, who looks properly chastised. "He's going to keep doing what the doctors and nurses say. He'll be better in no time, no time at all! And your dad is going to be fine as well. Just you see!"

Grace huffs and her bottom lip pushes out just a tad. "If nothing else happens to them before they get better," she says darkly.

Sophie makes a _pshaw_ sound. "What else could possibly happen?"

For absolutely no reason at all, a slight shiver goes down Eliot's back. He puts it down to the air conditioning in the building. Ya gotta love L.A. Air conditioning all year round, even in the winter.

Yeah, it's the air conditioning. And that tightness in his gut? It's from the two bullet wounds he's got there. Yeah. Not anything like foreboding or anything like that. Not at all.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: Dun-dun-duuuun!

Yes, I know that there are tons of ways to get pink out of white laundry without throwing everything out, but this is Sophie. Why redo laundry when one can simply go shopping and get _new_ things? Of course, if it's something expensive, one might make the effort...And while Eliot may be an expert at getting blood stains out of clothes, pink out of white? Maybe not so much. That's my explanation for why he didn't teach Grace how to fix that problem, before you ask.

And see? Eliot's fine. I promised he would be. For now, mwahaha!

* * *

Anon reviews:

Kaitibell: Thanks both for reading/reviewing and for letting me know about the formatting for the dream scene. Glad you're enjoying this!

Drjones: No, I haven't read the book. So…not that good, huh? Thanks for the huge, huge compliment! :D And also, thanks for reading the _Crossfire Trail_ fic. Have you seen the movie?


	10. Chapter 10

AN: If you've seen _Rescue 77_, you know the episode where Wick gets his first (and probably only) acting gig? Hilarious, right? I loved it! That's what's being referenced here. If you haven't seen it, that's fine, too.

Anyway, this chapter. 'Tis short. It was supposed to be the beginning of the next chapter (one loooong chapter), but I decided that 11 pages on Word is much too long for a story averaging 5 pages per chapter, and since I want to write a bit more before I post that, I decided to split it up. Think of this as an interlude. Chapter 11 will be better, overall, in my opinion, if you would be so kind as to wait for that one. Thanks!

* * *

**Chapter 10**

Leaving Grace with Parker, Nate reflects later that day, was not his brightest idea. Scratch that. Leaving Grace with Parker _and_ Hardison had not been good idea. At least Sophie had been there to stop- to help- Well, she actually hadn't helped much, to tell the truth. "Enabled" might be a better word for what she did.

"Show me Lord Argus again!" Grace commands with a giggle.

Hardison obliges and pulls up a very short, very bad quality video clip featuring a baby-faced Wick Lobo in some kind of warrior costume being "defeated" by Hercules.

"Oh, this will never get old," he comments with a chuckle because an Eliot look-alike in a costume like that, with the questionably Viking-like helmet? Priceless. "But you gotta admit, _Hercules Undercover_ was pretty bomb, back in its day. I am like 95.4 percent sure your dad's a geek."

"Yeah," Grace agrees. "We watch cartoons when he has Saturday mornings off."

"That's cool," Hardison nods, "I respect a man who watches cartoons with his kid. I respect that."

"Like you respect privacy?" Sophie says airily, making a hypocritical note to herself to ask Wick if he had ever had aspirations to be an actor – he did choose to move out here to Los Angeles, after all.

"Yeah, like you do, too, right?" Hardison retorts with a grin, "I know what you were doin' with Grace yesterday. Tryin' ta get family secrets outta her. My way worked better, though. Didn't it? Huh? Yeah."

Parker snorts. "You thought Eliot stole her."

"I- Well- Yeah, okay. I read the facts wrong," Hardison flounders, "but at least I got 'em!"

"Why would Eliot give you away like that, though?" Parker asks Grace, "I didn't think he was that kind of a person." The look she casts at the sleeping hitter is a trifle disappointed. Eliot twitches a little in his sleep, as if conscious of the thief's scrutiny.

"I'm sure he had his reasons," Sophie says, "Most people who make that decision, which I'm sure was _very_ difficult, do."

"Sometimes," Hardison says seriously, as if remembering something from his own past, "parents don't think they can take care of their kids, or maybe not as good as they deserve, so they give 'em up so they can have a better chance."

"That doesn't make sense," Parker frowns.

"He gave me up," Grace explains, "because my parents wanted a kid, and he didn't really know how to take care of me, even though he loved me and he was gonna try. He thought leaving me with them would be safer and better for me than keeping me. That's why."

Parker still doesn't looks satisfied, and opens her mouth to question Grace further, but Grace sits up straight and looks her in the eye.

"I love my dad," she says, "He's a good dad. He tries really hard to raise me right, even though he's sometimes totally not fair about the rules, and like, bedtime. But it's hard being a single dad who sometimes has all night shifts and sometimes has to do overtime and stuff like that. I'm sure Uncle Eliot would have been good, too. I mean, I _know _because he took care of me when Dad was hurt, but he's...It's just not the same as it is with Dad. When Dad wouldn't wake up, I was so mad at- at everybody. For lying to me and making me think they loved me. I was mad at Dad for getting hurt. And I was really, _really_ mad at Uncle Eliot for giving me away. And then, I don't know. We talked, and then it was...I don't know how to explain it, but...

She sighs and picks at her uncle's bedsheets with her fingers. "It's not the same as before I knew, but I love both of them. One's my dad and the other's not, and sometimes I feel confused, but you know, it doesn't really matter because- because it doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter even if we weren't related. They're my family."

Parker nods slowly. "Like we're family." She stops to clarify, "Not you, I mean. I like you, but you're not family. Or maybe you are. Because Eliot's in my team family and you're in Eliot's real family. So maybe that makes us sort of family."

"Yeah, maybe," Grace grins. "That would be cool! So." She tilts her head and casts a calculating look at Parker (she has already figured out the Nate/Sophie relationship and thinks it's super-romantic). "How do you feel about Uncle Eliot? Do you think he's dreamy? Handsome? I think he likes blondes. And I need an aunt, so Uncle Eliot can have kids for me to play with. I want cousins, 'cause Dad says 'no, no, uh-uh, not ever' about a little brother or sister 'because one hellraiser is enough.' And it's not like he ever dates anyone anyway. Dad, that is. Uncle Eliot _really_ likes girls and dates and stuff."

Hardison chokes on his soda and Sophie smiles. Oh, Grace. She's beginning to like this little girl quite a lot.

"Well," the grifter says conspiratorially, "I have been talking to him a bit about what would happen if we all settled down. Which of us would be able to live that life to the fullest, and so on. And from what he told me, he doesn't seem adverse to the thought of settling down, perhaps building a new life…"

"So you think he'd be a good dad, too, right?" Grace agrees, "I do, too."

"He's good at building stuff," Parker says (having unscrunched the confused expression from her face), but Hardison's not exactly sure if she means metaphorically, or if she means that Eliot is good with his hands…And that is _so_ not where he wants his mind to go.

_Oh, man._ He silently wills Eliot to wake up before the estrogen-powered gossiping drives him insane. Or, you know, Nate could come back from the hotel room where he's planning the next Eliot-less job. He'd be happy with that, too.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nate sits among a pile of papers and taps his pen on a yellow legal pad.

Plan…G will have…hmm, yes. And a- a penguin…hmm…

He already has plans for when various team members are absent or incapacitated. For this next job, all he has to do is tweak a little…

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Da."

"Our friend in Los Angeles says Eliot Spencer was seen there."

"Khrosho. _Good. Get men. We go to L.A."_

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

Russian Translation (phonetic, as always):

_Da - _Yes

_Khrosho_ – Good

Nate and the penguin. Don't ask. I don't know. It just popped into my head. As I've said to a few reviewers already, I don't really know where this story is going, or rather, how to get from here to where I want to go, haha. You'll see when I figure it out. Until then, thanks for sticking with me!

Foreshadowing! And Russians! Mwahaha!

* * *

Anon review replies:

Drjones: Aww, thanks again! You are so sweet! And more _Crossfire Trail/Leverage _fic? I've gotten a lot of requests, and I have ideas, so that's probably going to happen.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Wick walks down the hall to his brother's hospital room feeling much lighter and more rested than he has in a while. He had run into Eliot's doctor on the way in, and she had told him that her patient is out of danger and should be able to go home in a couple of days. Provided, she had said with a meaningful look, he stays in bed and doesn't do anything too strenuous. Wick had laughed and thanked her for dealing with his cantankerous brother and completely ignored her question about _his_ health.

Yes, things are finally going well. He's feeling better - not great, and certainly not _best_, of course, but okay, at least enough to last his next two shifts before he'll be able to curl up in bed and tune out the rest of the world…until Grace's birthday and her party, during which he'll have a half-dozen elementary school kids running around his house and giving him a headache - and he's looking forward to seeing his brother. In addition, now that he's no longer in danger of dying, maybe Wick will even be able to pay him back for all the fussing he did when Wick was injured.

Yeah, things are going pretty well, overall.

As he comes up to the door, he hears -

"Go!"

He stops in the doorway in time to see Grace working furiously at something in her hands. Something...

Hold it.

Is that a lock?

"Six point three! Yeah!" Eliot's blonde friend says and holds her hand up for Grace to high-five.

Eliot, awake and sitting up in bed, acknowledges his presence with a nod and a small smirk. Jerk. A jerk who is obviously feeling much, much better. Wick feels a little of the tension in his back and shoulders melt away at the sight of his brother enjoying the sight of Grace picking a lock.

"Let me do it again!" Grace cries, "I can go faster."

He hasn't seen her this excited about something in a while. In a long time, actually. It's good to see her laughing and smiling like this again. This is how a kid should act, not...not like she has been acting lately. He sighs. His little girl is growing up too fast, he thinks with a sad smile.

Sophie, who is sitting directly across the room from him, sees him leaning against the doorway and catches his eye with a knowing look. He throws her a wink as he strides into the room, schooling his face into the most serious, forbidding expression in his arsenal.

"What's going on here?" he asks quietly, pinning Grace to her seat with a stern look.

She gulps and puts her hands - and the objects in them - behind her back in a poor attempt to hide what she was doing. "Uh, hi, Dad. Did you sleep well?"

He raises an eyebrow and holds out his hand.

After a moment, she puts the lock she had been working on into his palm with a guilty look. He picks it up with his other hand, looks it over with a critical eye, then holds his hand out again with a "gimme" gesture. The slender lock-picking tools slide into his hand.

He looks down at the objects in his hands with an appraising gaze. He weighs the lock, tosses it lightly in the air and catches it, then closes it with an ominous click. "Picking locks?" He turns to Parker. "You're teaching my daughter how to pick locks?"

"It's a useful skill," the woman says brightly, as innocent as a babe, as if she sees nothing wrong in it. Right. Sometimes he forgets that his brother and his friends are criminals, and a little bit crazy to boot.

He turns back to Grace and sighs deeply. "And you, you should know better. You're better than this."

Grace bites her lip and looks down.

Since she's not looking at him, Wick risks a smirk identical to his brother's. "Six seconds, Grace?" he says, blue eyes twinkling mischievously, "That's still faster than Eliot and you've got the 'doing it quietly' part down, I'll grant you that, but it's not all that fast, hun. Six seconds." He shakes his head as if in disappointment.

Big, disbelieving blue eyes snap up to stare at him. "Dad?" Poor Gracie. She sounds so confused.

Wick chuckles. "Oh, honey. I practically live at the fire station. Lock-picking is..." He looks at the grinning Parker, "kind of a necessary survival skill, along with whoopee cushion inflation and saran-wrapping toilet bowls. And it's you know, kinda useful for the job, too."

The room explodes half into giggles (from Parker and Sophie), and half into disbelieving outbursts of _"What?!" _(from Hardison and Grace).

"This guy," Eliot finally says from the bed with a wide grin, jabbing a finger at his brother, "When we were kids, oh, man, if we wanted to get into...someplace, we always made sure we had him with us. He could get us in and out without anyone knowing for sure we were in there. Couldn't prove anything." He holds up his hand for a high-fiving handshake.

Wick clasps Eliot's hand, then adds, "Ya mean, until they installed the security cameras," he chortles. "Then were we in trouble!" He lets go and sneakily feels Eliot's forehead in the guise of messing his girly hair up and knocking his head lightly to the side. Roughhousing while nursing. That's how brothers do it.

"Good times," Eliot chuckles, oblivious for now to the start of the fraternal mother-henning, and puts his hand to his stomach, trying to stop laughing so much. "Remember hood surfing?"

"Oh yeah. We were pretty wild back then," Wick agrees.

Grace stares at her father wide-eyed and with her mouth hanging open. Wick catches the look and says, "What? I was young once, too, ya know? Before I got all boring and dad-like."

Sophie smiles and says nothing. This man who looks like Eliot may lead a seemingly normal and only slightly adventurous life (in comparison to his brother, at least), but he is not boring, no, not at all. Quite interesting, actually.

"Oh yeah," Hardison wags a finger at Wick, "I dug up some crazy shit about you. Defibrillating a guy in a room full of water? That's _insane."_

"You did _what?!"_ Eliot erupts, while Parker's eyes light up maniacally. Water and electricity. Awesome!

"I wasn't standing in the water," Wick shrugs, after throwing a glare at the man who has obviously been digging into his personal life, "That woulda been stupid." Then he smirks, tucking his hands into his pockets as he does so, "I did a handstand on his chest while I was defibbing him."

"You dumbass!" Eliot sighs tiredly and sags back against his pillows. "And they used to call you the smart twin."

Sophie nods and a satisfied air creeps into her smile. See? Not boring in the least, although the craziness may be hidden under a veneer of normality.

"Dad," Grace recovers and says indignantly, "Dad, how come you never showed me how to pick locks? You're supposed to pass that kind of thing on to me!"

Wick hands her the lock and tools in his hand. "Here, practice. I'll add a stop to the hardware store to my list of errands to do today so I can change the locks on all my embarrassing stuff to something you can't pick as easily."

"You have embarrassing stuff?" Grace asks, then holds up the lock, which swings open. She frowns because she remembers that he had closed it, and looks from the lock to him. "Did you pick this while you were talking?"

"He's good," Parker comments from the side. "Fast. But not as fast as me."

"Wait, Dad," Grace says again, snagging her dad's sleeve, "You said embarrassing stuff. What embarrassing stuff?"

Wick lets his head fall back and groans. "Oh, you have no idea. College was..." He whistles. "Seriously. Don't think about it."

"Embarrassing like Lord Argus?" Grace asks slyly.

"How?" Wick starts and his eyes narrow, darting from his daughter around the room to...the hacker. "Yes, honey, embarrassing like that. And you, stay out of my personal life." He glares at Hardison, who lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, feeling like he got off easy, _real_ easy.

"Huh," Eliot remarks, sounding surprised, "You got off easy," he tells Hardison.

Wick rolls his eyes and leans over the back of Grace's chair to kiss her on the cheek. "He's just lucky I'm in a good mood because Gracie did the laundry." Grace's eyes dart to Sophie and Parker, who suppress giggles.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Wick says, completely oblivious to the con the girls had run on him (or is he?), and runs his hand through her hair. Then he frowns and does it again, snagging his fingers on a tangled clump of curls.

"Ow, Dad!" Grace winces and pulls away. "I didn't use conditioner today."

"Why not? Did you run out again?" Wick asks, "There's a reason the grocery list is on the fridge. So you can write down what you need me to pick up."

"I forgot," Grace huffs with a pout.

"You can remember to put 'pony' and 'rainbow frosting' on the list, but you forget the thing you actually need?" Wick sighs and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Sometimes I feel like I'm raising a feral wolf cub."

"I _need_ a pony, Dad," Grace huffs, then adds, "And frosting is yummy and rainbows are pretty." She takes the list out of his hand and digs in his pocket for a pen. "Here. Conditioner. I wrote it."

"Well, thank you," Wick says sarcastically. "Now I'll remember to buy it."

Eliot looks over Grace's shoulder. "That says 'condi-_ton_-er.' You're missing an 'I'."

Grace groans and adds the missing letter. "Fine!" she snarls, "Here, Dad!"

Wick nods and pats her head. "Good job. How are we on shampoo?"

"Still half full," Grace reports.

"Okay, need anything else that's not on the list?"

"Mmm," Grace thinks, "I still need that pony."

"Haha, good one," Wick says and gives her a hug from behind. "I'm off. I need to order someone's birthday cake from the bakery."

Grace gasps and clasps her hands together. "From the Russian place? Ooh, the cakes from there are so yummy! And Tanya is really pretty..." She looks sideways at her dad.

Wick laughs, "Ohh, yeah, she is. Real nice, too. But stubborn."

Grace perks up in surprise and blinks at him.

"I used to date her," he says with a wink, "Didn't work out, so stop trying to set us up."

Eliot sits up taller at that. "You what? You're dating again? Since when? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Yeah," Grace agrees, grinning and bouncing excitedly. "When? Why didn't I know? God, you never tell me anything!"

"You didn't know?" Eliot asks Grace. "When and how did you go out without Gracie noticing?"

"Yeah, Dad," Grace says, "How come I didn't know? This affects my life, too, you know."

The look on Wick's face brings a jarring halt to the half-teasing.

"Dad?"

"You dated her before you met your wife," Sophie says gently.

Wick looks at the grifter. "God, you people are nosy," he scoffs softly, wiping his lips with his hand in a nervous motion and turning away to cover up his expression.

Hardison pokes his nose into peoples' personal electronic lives as part of his job, as a part of his very existence, even, and he never feels bad or wrong about doing it. But this, this feels wrong. This feels _too_ personal. The expression on the man's face...He'd lost his wife and the raw, hurt look on his face, a face too much like Eliot's, makes Hardison feel awful for the first time about what he'd done, dipping his fingers into this man's personal life.

The man doesn't know that Hardison knows everything that's online about him, everything that's personal that should be kept secret. He knows a lot of little things, things like flowers being charged on Wick's credit card on the same day every year. Things like a prescription for anti-depressants issued directly after Jessica Lobo's accident, presumably taken for a year and a half, abruptly stopped, then re-issued again off and on throughout the years. Even Eliot probably doesn't know about that. If Wick is anything at all like his brother, Eliot doesn't know anything about that.

Grace bites her lip. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and gives her father a hug. Her mother is still a sore point with him. He's still in love with her, even though she's been dead for most of Grace's life. She glances at her uncle and sees the same look on his face that she feels on her own. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I thought, I thought maybe..." She trails off, not wanting to word her hope that he has finally moved on.

"I know. It's okay, honey. It was my own fault for bringing it up." Wick smiles tightly and composes himself by tugging the ends of her hair absentmindedly. Grace scowls but doesn't say anything about it.

Instead, she says, "I miss her, too, Dad."

Wick clears his throat. "Anyway," he says, "I uh- Do you want me to pick you up before work tonight and drop you off at Tita's, or you want her to pick you up here later?"

"Later," Grace says, jumping at the chance to move on from an uncomfortable subject - and to stay with her beloved uncle as long as possible.

"Alright, I'll call her. Nine o'clock."

"Nine thirty."

"Nine," Wick says firmly, gladly taking the familiar distraction from the reminder of his wife's death. "Nine thirty is bedtime."

"But- "

"No," and Wick's eyebrows go up in an 'I'm serious, Grace Lobo' expression, "You have school tomorrow. Bed at nine thirty."

"Aww, Daaaaad," Grace draws out the one-syllable word, "I'm almost ten. Other ten-year-olds get to stay up later."

"Maybe," Wick says, "but you're not other ten-year-olds. You're _my_ nine-year-old, and I say bedtime is at nine thirty."

"Uncle Eliot lets me stay up late," Grace pouts.

Wick narrows his eyes at his guilty-looking, silently-protesting brother. "Well, Uncle Eliot is a pushover. Nine thirty, or I'll drop you off at Tita's at seven thirty and send you to bed right away."

"Not fair, Dad."

"Take your pick."

Grace sighs. "Tita picks me up at nine," she grumbles.

"And you're gonna be in bed by...?"

"Ten?" Grace heaves another sigh at the look her father levels her. "Nine thirty. Not fair."

"Good girl." Wick puts his arm around her and squeezes. "I love you," he says softly into her hair, smiling because he knows that she is still miffed at him for the "restrictive" bedtime rule. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hrrrmmrrmm," Grace mumbles into his shirt.

After Wick leaves, Eliot comments quietly, "Would it kill you to say 'I love you' to him out loud?"

"Would it kill you to say it to a girl who's not me?" Grace shoots back, feeling prickly.

"Touché." Eliot tilts his head. "But he's your father. And a girl oughta love her father and tell him so when he's feelin' down."

"I do. But he was being totally unfair."

"Even so. You should tell him. And not just when you're all tired and not as stubborn about it."

"Why don't you tell him?" Grace asks, huffing a bit.

"Because I'm a guy and guys don't do that."

"That's sexist. Why can't you tell your brother you love him?"

Eliot laughs uncomfortably. "Stop turning this on me, Grace. He knows I've got his back."

"Because you're his brother and you love him?" Grace smirks.

"Yes," Eliot sighs, giving in, "because of that."

"Say it. Say it, Elly."

"Arruvyerdudbecrrzmrbrrrvrr," Eliot mumbles, repeating after Grace, "There, happy?"

Parker lets out a sharp "Ha!" and Hardison and Sophie laugh out loud. They have never seen Eliot being such a...pushover. This girl has him firmly tied around her pinky finger, and he barely even puts up a fight.

Grace sits back and gives Eliot a "seriously?" look. "So basically, I inherited this emotional block thing from you? That's great."

"Shut up, kid," Eliot grunts, "At least I tell you."

"_Do _you love me, Elly?" Grace asks saucily, pulling her feet up onto her chair seat with a giggle.

Eliot just looks at her.

"Do ya?"

"Yes, I love you, you little brat." He reaches out for her. "Get over here, scamp."

Grace scrambles away and hides behind Parker. "Nu-uh. You're gonna tickle me."

Eliot makes as if to rise up out of bed to get to his mischievous niece.

"No!" Parker and Grace both shout, "You have to stay in bed."

Hardison grins wide and Sophie chuckles softly into her paper cup of tea.

Nate chooses that minute to walk in.

"Did I miss something?"

"I'm bein' kept prisoner by a coupla blondes," Eliot complains.

"How are your chances at escaping?" Nate asks seriously, prompting more giggling.

"Bad. Very bad. Somewhere between fourteen and twenty-two and a half percent," Eliot says somberly.

"Ah," Nate shakes his head gravely, "I can't say if you've had worse, but those numbers," he shakes his head again, "Serious, yes."

Grace crawls up onto the foot of the hospital bed and prods at Eliot's legs. "I want you to get better soon, Elly. Resting is how you get better."

Solemn blue eyes look into Eliot's, making him sigh. If he's this tired of being in the hospital, then Gracie must be sick of having to wait for the two father figures in her life to wake up and be there for her again.

"Following orders, ma'am," he salutes. "Now get your little butt over here so I can tickle you properly."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: The name of the Russian girl from the bakery never came up in "Career Day" so I made her name up. Any objections/corrections? (Thanks Ultra for telling me which episode it was!)

What Eliot mumbled: "I love your dad because he's my brother."

Anon review:

Drjones: I see you, you lurker! Alright, fine. See? New chappie. How are you feeling now? Interesting that you happened to review my "Lindsey gets drunk and barfs" story right when you were sick! ;P I love the Evil Hand! So what do you (or anyone, really) think? Would calling a story "The Hand Job" (meaning the Evil Hand) get taken down from the site for having too suggestive a title? I need an opinion on this. I mean, it's not exactly PG, although each individual word is...


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